Monday, April 11, 2011

I should probably type 'Viet Nam' from now on to prove I've been there but...

As I suspected, there was two weeks' worth of dead air here while I was in Vietnam. It was hard enough to check gmail, Facebook was fickle and it was almost impossible to Tweet (though I could read other people's feeds okay) on any public computer. Add in the extra time it takes to blog, and well, you get this make-up post.

Come with me...

We went to Vietnam with the primary objective of getting Marisa's wedding dress made -- and we achieved this relatively smoothly, but after visiting the War Museum and Cu Chi Tunnels in recent days it doesn't seem right to reflect on this trip as a type of military mission. Better to focus on life-affirming things like the kindness of the people (there were a couple half-hearted scammers but they'd always acquiesce if you put your foot down, pat you on the shoulder and bid you a pleasant journey).

Beyond the dress, we were there for the food, the culture and a break from work, probably in that order, though it all comes back to food in the end. If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, the way into Vietnam is through it's street food. Marisa and I ate in a variety of settings, from carts and off the back of scooters, at pavement stalls, in back alley restaurants and in tourist-trappy eateries. Everything was good, but as a general rule: the smaller the seats and the closer you sat to the ground, the better the food.

Of course, we did more than eat (that last photo is from a class we did in Hoi An, so we cooked as well).

There was some wildlife...

And historic places...

And charming-scary building practices that took me back to Bolivia...

And mysterious doors...

And dogs with mohawks...

Seriously. A dog with a mohawk...

You can't top that.

I read some books too, so my reading update debt continues to grow...

And in the back of my mind I did consider that going to a developing country for two weeks may help with my weight-loss regimen (regimen = weigh myself every now and then and hope the number is smaller than last time). I did lose 0.6 kgs, but I'm not sure that beats the margin of error. And I'm still heavier than this kid.

*

And finally, because I had such a great time, he's a suggestion for the next tourist campaign for Vietnam from a prize winning writer which the government there can have gratis.

Vietnam: a great place to visit, especially if you're writing a novel about mannequins.